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Language Skills

R
Python
QGIS
ArcGIS
Bash

Disclaimer

Made with the R package pagedown.

The source code is available on github.com/nstrayer/cv.

Last updated on 2021-06-06.

Main

Connor M. French

I have made visualizations viewed by hundreds of thousands of people, sped up query times for 25 terabytes of data by an average of 4,800 times, and built packages for R that let you do magic.

Education

PhD Student, Biology- Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior

New York, New York

City University of New York

current - 2018

  • Population genetic patterns and processes from local to global scales
  • Graduate Center Digital Fellow

M.S., Zoology

Carbondale, Illinois

Southern Illinois University

2018 - 2016

  • Systematics, phylogeography, and landscape genetics of the Ameerega petersi group (family Dendrobatidae)
  • Cooperative Wildlife Research Lab

B.S., Biology- Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior

Austin, Texas

University of Texas

2015 - 2011

Research Experience

Research Assistant

Texas Biodiversity Collections

University of Texas

Current - 2016

  • Herpetology Division
  • Supported data collection and collections management for conservation efforts.

Graduate Research Assistant

Michael J. Hickerson Lab

City University of New York

current - 2018

  • Investigating evolutionary responses to environmental change across spatial scales.

Graduate Research Assistant

Jason L. Brown Lab

Southern Illinois University

2018 - 2016

  • Completed thesis work on the evolution of Andean poison frogs.

Undergraduate Researcher

Daniel I. Bolnick Laboratory

University of Texas

2014 - 2013

  • Completed an independent project through the National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates. Experimental design, field work in British Columbia, lab work, data analysis, and first-author publication.

Undergraduate Researcher

David Cannatella Laboratory

University of Texas

2014 - 2013

  • Field work in support of frog acoustic research.

Field Technician

Middlesex, Belize

Toucan Ridge Ecology and Education Society

2014 - 2014

  • Designed and executed field protocols for monitoring amphibian populations.

Collections Assistant

Texas Biodiversity Collections

University of Texas

2014 - 2014

  • Ichthyology Division
  • Collected and analyzed fish morphometric data for taxonomic research and digitized research collections.




Teaching Experience

I am passionate about education. I believe that no topic is too complex if the teacher is empathetic and willing to think about new methods of approaching task.

R for Reproducible Scientific Analysis

Columbia University

New York, NY

2021 - 2021

  • Invited workshop.
  • Half-day online workshop as part of the Pre-Statistics Course Bootcamp.
  • Facilitated by Software Carpentries.

Introduction to Text Analysis in R

CUNY Graduate Center

New York, NY

2021 - 2021

  • 1.5 hour online workshop for CUNY Graduate Center faculty and students.
  • Hosted on rstudio.cloud.
  • Given as part of the GC Digital Fellows.

Digital Research Institute

CUNY Graduate Center

New York, NY

2021 - 2020

  • Five day series of workshops introducing CUNY faculty and students to digital tools for research.
  • Two sessions- one in January 2020 and one in February 2021.
  • Led the R track.

Reproducible Data Analysis in R

CUNY Graduate Center

New York, NY

2020 - 2020

  • 2.5 hour workshop on using RMarkdown and github for reproducible data analysis.
  • Hosted within the workr R package as an interactive tutorial.
  • Given as part of the GC Digital Fellows

Data Visualization in R

CUNY Graduate Center

New York, NY

2020 - 2020

  • 2.5 hour workshop on using ggplot2 for data visualization.
  • Hosted within the workr R package as an interactive tutorial.
  • Given as part of the GC Digital Fellows

Exploring population structure in R with adegenet and sNMF

CUNY Graduate Center

New York, NY

2020 - 2020

  • 1.5 hour online workshop given to an international group of evolutionary biology faculty and graduate students as part of the four day Bioinformatics Bootcamp for Ecology and Evolution.

Introduction to R and RStudio

CUNY Graduate Center

New York, NY

2020 - 2020

  • Two hour online workshop for CUNY Graduate Center faculty and students.
  • Given as part of the GC Digital Fellows.

Introduction to population structure inference in R

SIUC Zoology Department

Carbondale, IL

2019 - 2019

  • Invited workshop.
  • Two hour workshop for Zoology graduate and undergraduate students.

Introductory R and RStudio

CUNY Graduate Center

New York, NY

2019 - 2019

  • Invited workshop.
  • 1.5 hour workshop for graduate students in the Quantitative Zoogeography graduate course.

Bioinformatic processing of ultraconserved elements for phylogenetic analysis

SIUC Zoology Department

Carbondale, IL

2019 - 2019

  • Two hour workshop to introduce graduate students to a bioinformatic pipeline.

SLiM 5-day workshop

CUNY Biology Department

New York, NY

2019 - 2019

  • Co-organized five full-day workshop on SLiM population genetic simulation program

Data Wrangling in R

CUNY Graduate Center

New York, NY

2019 - 2019

  • 2.5 hour workshop on using the tidyverse for data manipulation.
  • Hosted within the workr R package as an interactive tutorial.
  • Given as part of the GC Digital Fellows

BioSkills

SIUC Biology Department

Carbondale, IL

2018 - 2017

  • TA, BIO 212
  • Co-developed material for new writing and discussion-based course section.
  • Concurrently ran ecology and developmental biology sections.

Introduction to Evolution and Ecology Lab

SIUC Biology Department

Carbondale, IL

2017 - 2017

  • TA, BIO 212
  • Led and prepared labs.

Vertebrate Anatomy Lab

SIUC Zoology Department

Carbondale, IL

2017 - 2017

  • TA, ZOOL 418
  • Led and prepared labs.
  • Advised undergraduate lab assistant.

Reptile and amphibian survey and capture techniques

SIUC Zoology Department

Carbondale, IL

2017 - 2017

  • Invited lecture, Curation of Collections (PLB 401).
  • One hour lecture on best practices for herpetological surveys.

Appropriate techniques for identifying and handling reptiles and amphibians in the field.

SIUC Zoology Department

Carbondale, IL

2017 - 2017

  • Invited lecture, SIUC Wildlife Techniques (ZOOL 469).
  • One hour lecture and field demonstration on best practices for herpetological surveys.

Introductory Biology for Non-Majors Lab

SIUC Zoology Department

Carbondale, IL

2016 - 2016

  • TA, ZOOL 115
  • Led and prepared labs.

Instructor

Camp Einstein Afterschool STEM Program

Austin, TX

2016 - 2016

  • Summer afterschool program for early elementary school students.

Biostatistics

UT Biology Department

Austin, TX

2015 - 2014

  • Undergraduate TA
  • Assisted graduate TA with leading and grading R programming labs, and facilitating course discussion.

Selected Data Science Writing

I regularly blog about data science and visualization on my blog LiveFreeOrDichotomize.

The Traveling Metallurgist

LiveFreeOrDichotomize.com

N/A

2017

  • Pure javascript implementation of traveling salesman solution using simulated annealing.
  • Allows reader to customize the number and location of cities to attempt to trick the algorithm.

Selected Press (About)

Great paper? Swipe right on the new ‘Tinder for preprints’ app

Science

N/A

2017 - 2017

  • Story of the app Papr made with Jeff Leek and Lucy D’Agostino McGowan.

Swipe right for science: Papr app is ‘Tinder for preprints’

Nature News

N/A

2017 - 2017

  • Second press article for app Papr.

The Deeper Story in the Data

University of Vermont Quarterly

N/A

2016 - 2016

  • Story on my path post graduation and the power of narrative.



Selected Press (By)

The Great Student Migration

The New York Times

N/A

2016 - 2016

  • Most shared and discussed article from the New York Times for August 2016.

Wildfires are Getting Worse, The New York Times

The New York Times

N/A

2016 - 2016

  • GIS analysis and modeling of fire patterns and trends
  • Data in collaboration with NASA and USGS

Who’s Speaking at the Democratic National Convention?

The New York Times

N/A

2016 - 2016

  • Data scraped from CSPAN records to figure out who talked and past conventions.

Who’s Speaking at the Republican National Convention?

The New York Times

N/A

2016 - 2016

  • Used same data scraping techniques as Who’s Speaking at the Democratic National Convention?

A Trail of Terror in Nice, Block by Block

The New York Times

N/A

2016 - 2016

  • Led research effort to put together story of 2016 terrorist attack in Nice, France in less than 12 hours.
  • Work won Silver medal at Malofiej 2017, and gold at Society of News and Design.

Selected Publications, Posters, and Talks

Building a software package in tandem with machine learning methods research can result in both more rigorous code and more rigorous research

ENAR 2020

N/A

2020

  • Invited talk in Human Data Interaction section.
  • How and why building an R package can benefit methodological research

Stochastic Block Modeling in R, Statistically rigorous clustering with rigorous code

RStudio::conf 2020

N/A

2020

  • Invited talk about new sbmR package.
  • Focus on how software development and methodological research can improve both benefit when done in tandem.

PheWAS-ME: A web-app for interactive exploration of multimorbidity patterns in PheWAS

Bioinformatics

N/A

2020

  • Manuscript detailing application for the exploration of multimorbidity patterns in PheWAS analyses
  • See landing page for more information.

Charge Reductions Associated with Shortening Time to Recovery in Septic Shock

Chest

N/A

2019 - 2019

  • Authored with Wesley H. Self, MD MPH; Dandan Liu, PhD; Stephan Russ, MD, MPH; Michael J. Ward, MD, PhD, MBA; Nathan I. Shapiro, MD, MPH; Todd W. Rice, MD, MSc; Matthew W. Semler, MD, MSc.

Multimorbidity Explorer | A shiny app for exploring EHR and biobank data

RStudio::conf 2019

N/A

2019 - 2019

  • Contributed Poster. Authored with Yaomin Xu.

Taking a network view of EHR and Biobank data to find explainable multivariate patterns

Vanderbilt Biostatistics Seminar Series

N/A

2019 - 2019

  • University wide seminar series.

Patient-specific risk factors independently influence survival in Myelodysplastic Syndromes in an unbiased review of EHR records

Under-Review (copy available upon request.)

N/A

2019

  • Bayesian network analysis used to find novel subgroups of patients with Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS).
  • Analysis done using method built for my dissertation.

Patient specific comorbidities impact overall survival in myelofibrosis

Under-Review (copy available upon request.)

N/A

2019

  • Bayesian network analysis used to find robust novel subgroups of patients with given genetic mutations.
  • Analysis done using method built for my dissertation.

R timelineViz: Visualizing the distribution of study events in longitudinal studies

Under-Review (copy available upon request.)

N/A

2018 - 2018

  • Authored with Alex Sunderman of the Vanderbilt Department of Epidemiology.

Continuous Classification using Deep Neural Networks

Vanderbilt Biostatistics Qualification Exam

N/A

2017 - 2017

  • Review of methods for classifying continuous data streams using neural networks
  • Successfully met qualifying examination standards

Asymmetric Linkage Disequilibrium: Tools for Dissecting Multiallelic LD

Journal of Human Immunology

N/A

2015 - 2015

  • Authored with Richard Single, Vanja Paunic, Mark Albrecht, and Martin Maiers.

An Agent Based Model of Mysis Migration

International Association of Great Lakes Research Conference

N/A

2015 - 2015

  • Authored with Brian O’Malley, Sture Hansson, and Jason Stockwell.

Declines of Mysis diluviana in the Great Lakes

Journal of Great Lakes Research

N/A

2015 - 2015

  • Authored with Peter Euclide and Jason Stockwell.